Knowing God and a Productive Prayer Life

Prayer is the most ancient, most universal, most intense expression of the religious intellect and it touches infinite extremes, for it is at once the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try and the sublimest strains that reach the Majesty on high.

It is indeed the Christian’s vital breath and native air.

The words of J. Oswald Sanders, “It is indeed the Christian’s vital breath and native air,” describe prayer as the atmosphere in which Christians breathe.

Unfortunately, many Christians today are dying of asphyxiation.

Now, remember, I am not here to condemn, as I note in the introduction, I struggle with prayer myself.

In his sermon, The Disciples Prayer, Haddon Robinson recalls a story that teaches a vital principle about prayer, “When our children were small, we played a game. I’d take some coins in my fist. They’d sit on my lap and work to get my fingers open. According to the international rules of finger opening, once the finger was open, it couldn’t be closed again. They would work at it, until they got the pennies in my hand. They would jump down and run away, filled with glee and delight. Just kids. Just a game. Sometimes when we come to God, we come for the pennies in his hand. ‘Lord, I need a passing grade. Help me to study.’ ‘Lord, I need a job.’ ‘Lord, my mother is ill.’ We reach for the pennies. When God grants the request, we push the hand away. More important than the pennies in God’s hand is the hand of God Himself. That’s what prayer is about.”[1]

We should continuously remind ourselves whom it is we are speaking to in prayer.

Reminding ourselves of God should prevent us from ignoring His hand as we reach for the pennies.

In order to have a productive and joyful prayer life, we, as believers, must learn and apply the doctrines, which pertain to God’s divine essence.

Since God is spirit, His attributes are invisible to the human eye. His qualities cannot be perceived through experience [empiricism] or human intellect [rationalism].

Only through faith, as we note in Chapter 5, may we understand His invisible attributes.

In faith, the believer is utterly dependent on the Word of God to understand the invisible, immaterial, infinite, unlimited essence of God.

The essence of God contains the following fourteen attributes: (1) Sovereignty: God is the absolute authority over creation and every creature. (2) Righteousness: God always does right by His creatures. (3) Justice: God always renders perfect decisions. (4) Love: God always has our best interests in mind and will do what is best for us. (5) Eternal life: God is ever present now. (6) Omnipotence: God is all-powerful. (7) Omniscience: God has all knowledge. (8) Omnipresence: God is everywhere present. (9) Immutability: God never changes. (10) Veracity: God is truth. (11) Mercy: God withholds judgment in order that His creatures might repent. (12) Compassion: God has concern for the suffering of His creatures due to sin. (13) Faithfulness: God keeps His promises. (14) Infiniteness: God is not confined by time, matter, and space.

Knowledge of God’s attributes, of His character and nature, is essential in cultivating a relationship with Him.

Only those who know the character and nature of God will be capable of moving mountains with prayer.

Since prayer is carried to God by faith, and faith is, in large measure, dependent on whom we know God to be, then the energy and productivity of our prayer lives is directly dependent on our thoughts and our personal knowledge of God.

This may answer the question as to why there is so little “real” prayer in churches these days.

People neither think about God very often nor very seriously, according to the latest polls in evangelicalism.

We worship God by meditating on His person, His attributes, and His deeds.

We can meditate on God with David’s Psalm of Praise.

Psalm 145:1 I will extol You, my God, O King, And I will bless Your name forever and ever. 2 Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever. 3 Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable. 4 One generation shall praise Your works to another and shall declare Your mighty acts. 5 On the glorious splendor of Your majesty and on Your wonderful works, I will meditate. 6 Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts, and I will tell of Your greatness. 7 They shall eagerly utter the memory of Your abundant goodness and will shout joyfully of Your righteousness. 8 The LORD is gracious and merciful; Slow to anger and great in lovingkindness. 9 The LORD is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works. 10 All Your works shall give thanks to You, O LORD, and Your godly ones shall bless You. 11 They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom and talk of Your power; 12 To make known to the sons of men Your mighty acts and the glory of the majesty of Your kingdom. 13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all generations. 14 The LORD sustains all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down. 15 The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due time. 16 You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. 17 The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds. 18 The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. 19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them. 20 The LORD keeps all who love Him, but all the wicked He will destroy. 21 My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, and all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever.

In a children’s book entitled, Is A Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?, Robert Wells illustrates God’s power in creation by taking us from a size we can grasp to one we can’t.

He writes, “e largest animal on earth is the blue whale. Just the flippers on its tail are bigger than most animals on earth, but a blue whale isn't anywhere as big as a mountain. If you put hundreds of blue whales in a huge jar, you could put millions of "whale jars" in a hollowed out Mount Everest, but Mount Everest isn't nearly as big as the earth.” Wells goes on to compare the earth to the sun, then the sun, which scientists say is a medium-sized star, to the red super giant star called Antares. Antares, he says, can hold fifty million of our suns, but the Milky Way galaxy holds billions of stars, including super giants like Antares. The comparisons are endless, and Wells illustrates that point perfectly. He ends the story by writing, “When we approach a God of this magnitude in prayer, let us come humbly, knowing that he is awesome in power, that there is good reason the Hebrews referred to him as El Shaddai, the Almighty!”[2]

Jeremiah the prophet said, “Ah sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched hand. Nothing is too hard for you!”

Jesus, in Mark 14:36, said, “Abba Father, everything is possible for you….” and in Luke 1:37, Elizabeth’s miraculous pregnancy brought forth the praise that “nothing is impossible for God.”

The good news is that God, who is all-powerful, is the same God who is holy, loving, and wise.

When we approach our heavenly Father in prayer, therefore, we must remember all these spiritual truths.

We must believe that He cares for us and knows us intimately; indeed, He knows us better than we know ourselves (cf. 1 Pet. 5:6).

J. I. Packer sums it up well when he writes, “What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact that underlies—the fact that He knows me. I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him because He first knew me and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters.”[3]

Too bad we do not approach this subject with as much amazement as the youngster in Sunday school class who recites the Lord’s prayer, “Our father, who art in heaven, how’d you know my name?”

Just as, in Psalm 145, David rejoiced for him knowing God, he also rejoiced, in Psalm 139, for God knowing him.

Psalm 139:1 O LORD, You have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. 3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all. 5 You have enclosed me behind and before and laid Your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it. 7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. 11 If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,’ 12 even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You. 13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. 14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; 16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. 17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You. 19 O that You would slay the wicked, O God; Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed. 20 For they speak against You wickedly, and Your enemies take Your name in vain. 21 Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? 22 I hate them with the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; 24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me and lead me in the everlasting way. (NASB5)

[1] Haddon Robinson, “The Disciples Prayer,” Preaching Today, No. 117.

[2] Robert Wells, Is A Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? (Illinois: Albert Whiteman, 1993).

[3] J.I. Packer, Knowing God. (Illinois: InterVarsity, 1973) 41-42.